Mute | Adopted by Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett

That night Scarlett found herself deep within a dreamland she had never experienced before in her life. This new dream had Scarlett walking down a long corridor with doors evenly spaced out down the length of it. As she made her way down, doors started opening on their own, each revealing a small room with the same neatly made bed with all white sheets, and sat in the centre, cross-legged on the floor, a small child reading a book, every child looked different to the last but they were all reading the same book. Scarlett kept going down the corridor, peering into all of the rooms she passed, trying to call out to one of them, but she found that she wasn't able to, not for an inability to speak, but it was as if her dream subconscious just didn't feel confident enough to say anything and break the long silence.

Groggily, Scarlett finally woke up after walking for what felt like a lifetime. She couldn't help but feel that maybe this dream had more meaning to it. That maybe it was trying to tell her what she wanted. What she needed. Looking over at her phone and turning it on she found that it was surprisingly already 8:36 AM, although Scarlett wanted to stay in bed a little longer in an attempt to try and decipher this dream while it was still fresh in her mind. She thought about her day yesterday and all that she had seen, even though she had gone over this plenty of times in her head after her visit yesterday. Scarlett found a lot of that dream weird, first of all every single child there was reading the exact same book and Scarlett only recalled one child, during the actual visit, reading. Secondly, her dream selfs unwillingness to speak could only symbolise one girl. This couldn't be something that Scarlett was making up, the signs were obvious, anyone would be able to see them.

With that, Scarlett practically leapt out of bed, rushing to her laptop in the office with a newfound excitement. As soon as she opened the laptop and opened up her emails to create a draft she paused, suddenly at a loss for how to word this recent discovery into an email. Well she knew it had to start with writing down the orphanage's email and then a subject, which Scarlett thought 'Decision from the visit' would be best for lack of a better way to phrase it with her currently scattered mind. She then got to writing the rest of the email:

Dear Mrs Moore,
I am writing to let you know about the decision I am considering from my visit yesterday. I have thought this over thoroughly ever since I left, after seeing you and all of the kids, and have decided that I would like to set up more individual visits with one child in particular. That child being Arlo. Out of all the kids that you have under your care, I felt the most connection with her even though we didn't share much of an interaction, I just feel completely drawn to her. I do understand the situation with her and I believe that I am capable of handling this responsibly. Obviously I would only like to set up these individual visits with her if she is comfortable with all of this and I also understand it may be necessary that someone can translate sign language, as I currently do not know any but can promptly start learning.
Regards,
Scarlett Johansson

After hitting send, Scarlett went to the kitchen to have a quick breakfast, that being just a single apple, but she didn't really feel that hungry yet. She was wondering when the orphanage would get back to her, she couldn't imagine that they would take too long to reply, however she had no idea as she had never gotten this far into the adoption process before, so this was all new territory. As Scarlett was thinking about all of this, she heard a distant chime, sounding like it came from another room. Assuming it was her laptop, she went back into her office to check if it was her emails, feeling a wave of anxiousness when she saw that the orphanage had already replied to her. What if they denied her request? What if she had gotten her hopes up slightly for nothing? What if they said yes? After much deliberation, Scarlett opened the email and started reading:

Dear Miss Johansson,
We are very glad to hear that your visit yesterday went so well that you are considering adopting one of our kids. We would also be delighted to set up a few visits with Arlo as she has agreed to do, where I will be present to help answer any questions and translate for you. I have recently checked our schedule here and I see that we do have the time today to proceed with our first one to one, let me know if this works for you.
Regards,
Mrs Moore